On Getting Inked

I never would have pictured myself actually going through with this. I have heard so many people warn of the pain and regret, the permanence. I have been warned of the stigma that is attached to each and every tattoo that is visible on your body, the judgement that is formed when you go to a job interview. But to me, these are awfully pitiful fears that society tries to instill in us, to prevent us from leading the lives we want to live, to prevent us from marking our bodies they way we want them to be marked. I want a tattoo to celebrate my hope and my joy and my pain. I want to celebrate every inch of my soul and show it to the world. I want to celebrate a feeling I have very recently began to discover, a feeling called happiness. And if that labels me as a degenerate, anything will.